10/30/2011

Thoughts On A Sunday

The snow certainly arrived earlier than usual this year, at least snow with a substantial accumulation. The lack of a snowblower certainly made cleaning up after the 12+ inches of heavy wet snow deposited by the storm a rather difficult task. Bogie has even more snow to move than we do.

While Deb and I accomplished our primary mission, finding replacements for the furniture that was damaged when the bathtub in the master bath sprung a leak, we didn't get the chance to go out shopping for the new snowblower yesterday.

You know this latest weather 'calamity' will be blamed on AGW. It's only a matter of time.

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Considering most of the leaves were still on the trees here in northern New England the snow caused a lot more power outages than a snowfall like this would under normal circumstances. Over 200,000 were without power in New Hampshire, with the total number in the millions across the Northeast.

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It's Halloween tomorrow night, which brings to mind an old saw: “You know you live in New Hampshire when you make sure your kids' Halloween costumes will fit over their snowsuits.”

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There is a rebellion brewing in rural California, with the ever increasing hardhanded edicts from Sacramento being felt by folks in rural counties causing them to fight back, along with help from their local law enforcement.

The state government decide to cave to the watermelon environmentalists and start destroying hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River, taking away both power and water resources from a number of farms and ranches in the area. (It seems hypocritical to me, destroying a renewable energy source all in the name of the environment.)

These rural folks, living in the shadow of the majestic Mount Shasta, believe that they are being driven away so that their communities can essentially go back to the wild, to conform to a modern environmentalist ethos that puts wildlands above humanity. As the locals told it during the Defend Rural America conference Oct. 22 at the Siskiyou Golden Fairgrounds, environmental officials are treading on their liberties, traipsing unannounced on their properties, confronting ranchers with guns drawn to enforce arcane regulatory rules and destroying their livelihoods in the process.

The evening's main event: a panel featuring eight county sheriffs (seven from California, one from Oregon) who billed themselves as "Constitution sheriffs." They vowed to stand up for the residents of their communities against what they say is an unconstitutional onslaught from regulators in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. In particular, they took issue with the federal government's misnamed Travel Management Plan, which actually is designed to shut down public travel in the forests.

Plumas County Sheriff Greg Hagwood related the stir he caused when he said he "will not criminalize citizens for just accessing public lands." Siskiyou County Sheriff Jon Lopey reminded the crowd that county sheriffs are sworn to uphold the Constitution "against all enemies, foreign and domestic." These are fighting words.

I think we always knew the lunatic fringe seemed to thrive in California, now we're seeing they've taken over the reins of government and are doing their best to destroy what little is left of liberty and rights in the Golden State.

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Bill Whittle schools the Progressives about the actual meaning of the Commerce and General Welfare clauses of the Constitution, and warns them that “if the social compact is broken by the government, then we don't have to live by their laws,” something that could easily lead to rebellion and the end of the rule of law. But then Progressives seem to like that idea. They have certainly worked hard to make the Constitution nothing more than a worthless piece of paper interesting only in a historical perspective, and to replace it by the rule of the politically correct courts and edicts from politically correct Progressive leaders...like Castro, Stalin, Breznev, Chavez, Hitler, Mussolini, Obama, etc.

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Thought this is a little dated, it's still indicative of the problems facing a lot of American cities who for years spent far more than they could afford. In this case it's Detroit (again) having troubles keeping the streetlights on.

This is yet another ongoing example of the result of years of Democrat governance and union in the Motor City. I have a lot of sympathy for present Detroit Mayor Dave Bing seeing as he has decades of damage and neglect to undo.

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The liberal meme that supporting Herman Cain for President proves the Right's racism is growing. Never mind that they have to twist their logic in ways that would have caused such folks expressing it to be involuntarily committed to a mental institution only a few decades ago because they would have been seen as being totally disconnected from reality.

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Wizbang has an interesting and simple comparison by the numbers between the OWS and the Tea Party protests. OWS doesn't come out looking very good, but then I really didn't expect them to.

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Watching the New England Patriots play the Pittsburgh Steelers was painful. Neither the defense or the offense were working. During the beginning of the second quarter the only way the Patriots seemed to be able to get first downs was due to Steeler penalties.

The second half wasn't much better. In the end the Patriots lost.

Just before the game started one of the TV commentators mentioned that Bill Belichick had checked the stats of all 12 teams coming off a bye week and found that the win-loss records of such teams was only 3-9. It looks like the Pats fell victim to that statistic.

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One thing I have to admit to: being weirded out by seeing all of the snow on the ground along with the trees still bearing green, red, yellow, and orange leaves. It was while BeezleBub and I were heading to the local Big Box Hardware/Appliance/Lumber/Garden Supply store to get a few 2X6's and 2X4's for a little project in the garage that we saw the paradox of snow and leaves.

As an aside, while at the BBH/A/L/GS store we decided to see what they might still have in the way of snowblowers. Last week they had a couple of dozen lined up out in front and another dozen just inside the main entrance. Today, they had four. And one of the helpful BBH/A/L/GS store employees tried to convince us to buy one of four the leftover snowblowers even though none of them were big enough to do the job at The Manse. Needless to say we took a pass.

We'll give them a few days to replenish their supply and then maybe we'll finally be able to replace our defunct snowblower.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the snow is melting away, the temperatures will be rising back into the upper 50's, and where we still need yo lay up our supply of firewood.